Read the Bills Act Coalition

Thursday, July 24, 2008

'If [McCain] took a trip today, begrudgingly the network anchors now would have to go. ... So far, so far, I think this has been everything and more that the Obama campaign hoped. ... [There's] always a danger for somebody in Obama's position. He's now been built up. What's the next step? We'll see. It's a long campaign.'

2 comments:

Roger Allison
said...

There are four reasons that America is skeptical of Obama and, in the end, will be his Achilles Heal:

1) Sermon-like speeches. Too many evangelists have swooned lemmings (Jim Baker come to mind) out of life savings for their own personal interests. Does anyone remember Robert Redford’s first remark in The Candidate when, after a brilliant campaign based upon baseless slogans, he won the election? It was, “What Now?” America is afraid of “what now?” Moreover, Obama’s sermon-like training has been at the hands of documented “say anything to get an AMEN” preachers, including the famous “Shame on America” Jeremiah Wright speech blaming America for the 9/11 attacks. To validate that Obama can’t help but get caught up in his own “say anything to get an AMEN” rhetoric, on July 24th while in Israel, he pointed to a bill that “my committee passed” in the U.S. Senate Banking Committee that tightens sanctions on Iran. Obama isn’t even on that committee.

2) Obama is campaigning, not listening. If Obama was trying to learn his foreign policies on his recent photo-laden Middle East trip, he certainly was conducting more sermons than he was listening to anyone. How do you learn when your mouth is moving? Filling stadiums of non-voters (Germany) or strategically-placed people (removal of Middle Eastern women from camera view) does not prove anything. Matter of fact, after listening to an Obama sermon in Oman, an interviewed woman wondered if she could learn more about Obama and concluded that maybe that was all there is. Motivational rhetoric has incited many ordinarily smart people to be “sold” something rather than “buying” something. Can America really believe that words are more important than actions?

3) Un-vetted. Obama has yet to complete his first term as a Senator. I too was impressed by Obama’s Democratic convention speech and thought to myself that there is a person that the Democrats can field in the future. All too common, an ill-advised major league baseball team (Washington Nationals come to mind) desperate for pitching, calls up the hottest prospect from AA or AAA before he is ready. What happens? Most of the time he isn’t ready for the competition, fans become angered, the young pitchers arm is burned out and he loses confidence. It seems that out of desperation to field a candidate stronger than John Kerry, the Democratic Party, has sent a minor league player to compete for the most important position in the world. Furthermore, it seems that the best strategy would have been to enable Hillary Clinton to become the presidential candidate while grooming Obama for the future. Wasn’t Abe Lincoln un-vetted? Obama is no Abe Lincoln and Abe didn’t live in the time of blogs, YouTube, email, IM, twittering, CNN and other instant media coverage that enables Obama to immediately respond to accusations rather than document his own proactive strategy – as Abe did.

3) Risk. Un-vetted candidates can only run on “change” because they have no further substance to run on. Our founding fathers created a unique check and balance in our political system that tempers “change” to a negotiation to find a common ground. To impact any change in both houses, a bipartisan viewpoint is needed. Anyone who has followed politics knows that McCain is the definition of “moderate” because many Democrats are willing to vote for him. He has been the Republican right wing’s (and President Bush’s) thorn for years because he takes on causes in a bi-partisan way. You know, what is right, not what is partisan. For example, compare his last of six trips to Iraq since 2000 to the latest photo-op (think we will see these pictures in the fall?) trip by Obama. McCain traveled with Democrat Joe Lieberman and not a duo of democrats (and morning show news anchors). An interesting fact, Obama served on McCain’s bi-partisan Immigration Committee and when the time came to vote for the negotiated bill, Obama folded like a cheap suit and voted party lines. In addition, the McBush campaign shows ignorance understanding America’s political complexion: One notch right of center. When the dust settles and the rhetoric ends, people vote for the least risk candidate. If you don’t believe it, simply look at the last presidential election. Likewise, look at the final 3 months of the Democratic presidential nomination process when Hillary won the primaries in a landslide when people realized what was happening…but too late. Obama was quoted as schizophrenically saying, “America is the greatest nation on earth. Help me change it.” All sales people know about “The Stadium Pitch,” of which, Obama has perfected. Simply, it is a marketing ploy to mass appeal knowing that a calculated percentage will bite. Of course, there is no room for interaction, just one-way communications. Indeed, words are deemed more important than substance. The next phase we will see is the “faith” card. Not religious “faith,” but in lieu of substance. If you don’t have experience, you have to ask people to have “faith” that you will do what you say. When it comes to risk, unless you believe that his age is a risk, it seems that McCain has a huge advantage.

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The Contemporary Conservative is a blog about the current state of the conservative movement, from a Generation X'ers perspective, and the transformation of what it means to be a conservative in an ever-evolving world........that is, if we actually believed in evolution

Con·tem·po·rar·y1. existing, occurring, or living at the same time; belonging to the same time: Newton's discovery of the calculus was contemporary with that of Leibniz.2. of the present time; modern

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